Khovanshchina

A NATIONAL MUSIC DRAM IN FIVE ACTS (1879)

MUSIC AND TEXT BY Modest Mussorgsky

In Dmitri Schostakowitsch's version with Igor Stravinsky’s finale

Modest Mussorgsky’s national folk drama centres on a grim episode of late 17th-century Russian history. Ivan Khovansky, leader of the musketeer corps (streltsy), and his son Andrei, are planning a conspiracy, but the ambitious Prince Vasily Golitsyn, the boyar Shaklovity and cleric Dosifey also get involved in the struggle for power.

While still working on »Boris Godunow«, the composer Modest Mussorgsky began to think about a new opera project in 1872. Inspired by the writer Vladimir  Stasov, he began to read intensively about the circumstances of the Streltsy Uprising against Tsar Peter I and Sofia Alekseyevna. »I revel in collecting material, my head glows like a kettle that is constantly being replenished,« Mussorgsky wrote to his librettist Stasov. In many places, the composer deviated from historical accuracy to create new dramaturgical connections and contrast the political drama with the sphere of personal, amorous entanglements.
Mussorgsky was unable to complete the score before his death in 1881. Owing to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s intervention, who not only orchestrated the work but also deleted or thoroughly reworked large sections, »Khovanshchina« was performed years later. It was not until the early 1930s that a piano version of the original score was published, which also formed the basis for the newly-instrumented version of Claus Guth’s production under the musical direction of Vladimir Jurowski.

Program and cast

MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Simone Young
DIRECTOR: Claus Guth
CHOREOGRAPHY: Sommer Ulrickson
SET DESIGN: Christian Schmidt
COSTUMES: Ursula Kudrna
LIGHT: Olaf Freese
VIDEO: Roland Horvath
CHORUS MASTER: Dani Juris
DRAMATURGY: Yvonne Gebauer, Rebecca Graitl

FÜRST IWAN CHOWANSKI: Mika Kares
FÜRST ANDREI CHOWANSKI: Najmiddin Mavlyanov
FÜRST WASSILI GOLIZYN: Stephan Rügamer
BOJAR SCHAKLOWITY: Vladislav Sulimsky
DOSIFEI: Ferruccio Furlanetto
MARFA: Marina Prudenskaya
EMMA: Evelin Novak
SCHREIBER: Steve Davislim
SUSANNA: Anna Samuil
WARSONOFJEW: Roman Trekel
KUSKA: Andrés Moreno García
STRESCHNEW: Johan Krogius
ZWEI STRELITZEN: Taehan Kim, Friedrich Hamel
GEFOLGSMANN: N.N.

Language: In Russian language with German and English surtitles

Recommended age: 14 years and older

Pre-performance lecture 45 minutes prior to each performance (in German), Speaker: Roman Reeger